O'Keefe was at the center of a 2012-2015 "John Doe" criminal investigation into possible illegal campaign coordination between Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, Wisconsin Club for Growth, and numerous other "dark money" groups, until it was ended by the Wisconsin Supreme Court in July 2015. See below.

Post-John Doe Dismantling of the Government Accountability Board, Threatened Retaliation Against Prosecutors

Immediately after a conflicted Wisconsin Supreme Court issued a 4-2 decision ending the John Doe investigation, O'Keefe began attacking the prosecutors who took part in the case and Wisconsin's non-partisan Government Accountability Board (GAB), which oversees elections. (A network of groups with ties to O'Keefe had previously successfully sued the GAB in 2014 to block enforcement of aggregate PAC limits.)[1]

In an interview with right-wing radio host Charlie Sykes the day after the court's decision, O'Keefe "said efforts were underway to ask Gov. Scott Walker to fire the prosecutor in charge of the case," according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

O'Keefe said there would also be attempts to disbar the attorneys involved in the investigation. He also asked the Legislature to assess the involvement of the Government Accountability Board in the John Doe proceedings.[2]

O'Keefe also called to eliminate the GAB, a goal that was quickly supported by Governor Scott Walker and prominent state Republicans, according to the Wisconsin State Journal:

In October, 2015 O'Keefe's WiCFG launched a robocall campaign in support of a newly-proposed bill to replace the GAB with a board of partisan appointees.[4][5] The calls included a recording of O'Keefe urging the wavering senators' constituents to demand the senators vote "yes" on the bill.

A trio of bills to deform the GAB, dismantle campaign finance limits, and to prohibit the John Doe process being used to investigate political corruption had been proposed in September 2015. In addition to WiCFG, the groups campaigning and/or lobbying in support of the various bills included David Koch's Americans for Prosperity and a new nonprofit created by former AFP staffer Lorri Pickens.[5] The bills passed, and were signed into law in December 2015.[6]

O'Keefe Lawyer Files Suit Against John Doe Prosecutors

Former Scott Walker aide Cindy Archer filed a civil suit in July 2015 against Milwaukee County DA John Chisholm and four other prosecutors, accusing them of rights violations during the John Doe investigation. Archer was represented by attorney David Rivkin of Washington, DC-based Baker and Hostetler LLP, who was also the attorney for O'Keefe and WCFG in lawsuits related to the John Doe case.[7]

The complaint claimed that the DA's office "conducted a continuous campaign of harassment and intimidation against individuals and organizations in retaliation for their association with Scott Walker and their support for his policies," as described by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.[7] Officials had seized documents from Archer's home in connection with the John Doe investigation. Archer, who was appointed to a $113,000-a-year position in the state public defender's office in 2014,[8] wrote in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece that her "reputation and career have been damaged beyond repair."[7]

Audio of the raid on Archer's home unsealed in connection with the lawsuit "tells a different story" than Archer's claims.[9] (O'Keefe has compared the targets of the investigation to rape victims, saying prosecutors "imposed a traumatic, unconstitutional abuse on people.") As described by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the newly released audio

details tense but mannerly exchanges between Archer and Aaron Weiss, an investigator with the Milwaukee County District Attorney's Office, as he led a team of officers during an early morning raid on Archer's home as part of a now infamous John Doe probe.

"I'm sort of doing you a courtesy by letting you get a coffee and smoke a cigarette just because I imagine being woken up at six in the morning by a bunch of people in black suits is not the way you want to wake up in the day," Weiss said at one point.

The recording contradicts numerous claims made by Archer in her lawsuit, including that she did not have time to read the search warrant, that she did not know she had the right to a lawyer, and that the investigators "screamed at her" and forbid her from going outside to smoke a cigarette.[9][10] (Archer later amended her suit to "no longer [claim that] investigators questioned her during a raid of her Madison home without reading her Miranda rights," according to the Wisconsin State Journal.)[11] Many of these claims had been circulated in right-wing media spin about the case. See the related story on PR Watchhere.

In October 2013, O'Keefe broke a secrecy order and told the Wall Street Journal editorial board that he had been served with a subpoena in a "John Doe" investigation into possible campaign finance violations during Wisconsin's 2011 and 2012 recall elections, apparently in his capacity as chair of Wisconsin Club for Growth. According to statements made over the course of investigation and numerous related court cases, the prosecutors were investigating whether Governor Scott Walker illegally coordinated with supposedly "independent" dark money groups during the recall.[12] O'Keefe filed several lawsuits attempting to stop the investigation, arguing that it violated free speech, free assembly, and equal protection rights,[13] and called Wisconsin's campaign disclosure laws "unconstitutional."[14]

In July 2015 a 4-2 Wisconsin Supreme Court decision, with one liberal justice recusing herself, ended the investigation with a "sweeping" ruling[16] that opened the door to unlimited, undisclosed spending coordinated with candidates. As journalist Michael Isikoff noted, the controversial decision also raised concerns about conflicts of interest at the court, as several of the justices had been elected with millions of dollars in support from the groups under investigation.[16]

The majority decision declared that any coordination that did occur didn't violate the law, since it only involved so-called "issue ads" that stopped short of expressly saying "vote for" or "vote against" a candidate. The decision overturned years of precedent,[12] and a similar case in 1999 involving issue ad coordination had resulted in a $60,000 fine for then-Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Jon Wilcox's campaign.[17] Writing in dissent, Justice Shirley Abrahamson called the majority's decision "an unprecedented and faulty interpretation of Wisconsin's campaign finance law and of the First Amendment." Justice Patrick Crooks' dissent warned that the majority's decision "will profoundly affect the integrity of our electoral process,"[12] and responded to O'Keefe's argument that disclosing coordinated spending hindered free speech: "...there is a simple solution to that problem: stop coordinating. In the absence of coordination, the contributor is free to discuss candidates and issues."[18]

Wisconsin Public Radio Interviews O'Keefe After John Doe Decision

After the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled to shut down the John Doe investigation, Wisconsin Public Radio interviewed O'Keefe "about his experience." O'Keefe discussed his decision to violate the secrecy order by talking to the Wall Street Journal, WiCFG's activities, and his call to investigate the prosecutors and investigation. Click here for the recording.

Conflicts of Interest at WI Supreme Court Involving WCFG

Two groups at the center of the John Doe case, WCFG and Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, had spent more than $10 million since 2007 helping elect the court's four-justice conservative majority, in most cases spending more than the candidates themselves. In every single one of the most recent elections for the court's four Republican justices--Justices David Prosser, Michael Gableman, Annette Ziegler, and Patience Roggensack--spending by WCFG, its surrogates, and WMC amounted to almost all of the independent support for the candidate, according to data compiled by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign and an analysis by the Center for Media and Democracy.[19] As journalist Michael Isikoff reported, the failure of the justices to recuse themselves raised concerns about the apparent conflicts of interest.[16] The level of spending by the groups in this case--and their direct stake in the outcome--could demand recusal under the U.S. Constitution, following the 2009 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Caperton v. Massey. In that case, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a West Virginia Supreme Court justice should have recused himself from a decision involving a major campaign contributor.

The investigation was conducted under Wisconsin's "John Doe" laws and was similar to a grand jury investigation. It was overseen by former federal prosecutor Francis Schmitz, who was once considered for a position as U.S. attorney by George W. Bush and who voted for Republican Governor Scott Walker,[20] and involved Republican and Democratic prosecutors in several Wisconsin counties.[21] However, the Wall Street Journal's editorial board characterized the investigation as a "political speech raid,"[22][23] and a number of right-wing groups claimed that the case was politically motivated.[24]

Leading the spin effort was Wisconsin Reporter, a site published by O'Keefe's Franklin Center that published over 160 articles attacking the John Doe probe and repeatedly broke news on the story without disclosing its conflicts of interest in reporting on the case, including the fact that one of the subjects of the investigation, Eric O'Keefe, was its founder and a major funder.[25] In addition, the Franklin Center's Director of Special Projects, John Connors, was the president of a dark money group involved in the John Doe investigation, Citizens for a Strong America, which received nearly all of its over-$6.6 million budget from WiCFG during the recalls, spending some to influence the Wisconsin Supreme Court race and funneling millions to other groups active in the recall. Despite these undeclared conflicts, Wisconsin Reporter posts were cited by O'Keefe in his lawsuit as evidence that the investigation was politically motivated, and Judge Randa also cited Wisconsin Reporter in support of his ruling (which was later overturned).[24]

O'Keefe Compares Criminal Investigation to Rape

In October 2014 while on a conservative talk radio show, O'Keefe compared the subpoena targets of the John Doe investigation to rape victims. As reported by the Wisconsin State Journal:

“I have read some about rape and I have talked about rape and I am saying this deliberately,” O’Keefe said. “The reactions that I got from the people I interviewed were similar to a rape victim.”

He said prosecutors “imposed a traumatic, unconstitutional abuse on people and told them you can’t talk to your colleagues, you can’t talk to your friends.”[14]

During the show, O'Keefe also called the Government Accountability Board "corrupt" and called the investigation "spying."[14]

O'Keefe/WCFG Legal Representation in John Doe Cases

O'Keefe and WCFG filed several lawsuits seeking to end the John Doe probe and were "able to obtain prominent, high-priced legal counsel to defend against the probe and go on the offensive against investigators," as the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel described in 2014, hiring Washington D.C.-based attorney David Rivkin of Baker and Hostetler LLP.[13]

A statement by John Doe prosecutor Francis Schmitz also named the Kansas, Missouri-based firm Graves Garrett, led by former U.S. Attorney Todd Graves, as representing WCFG.[26] Tax filings show that in 2013, WCFG gave $750,000 to a Missouri-based organization called the American Democracy Alliance, which does not appear to have a public presence,[27] but which shares an address with Graves' law firm. While the American Democracy Alliance describes its purpose as collecting donations and distributing them to conservative social welfare groups, its 2013 tax filing shows that it spent $1,441,346 on legal expenses (slightly more than its total revenues of $1,440,000 that year).[28]

O'Keefe/WCFG Lawsuits Fail in Federal Court

On February 10, 2014, O'Keefe and WCFG filed a suit with the U.S. District Court in Milwaukee claiming that "the probe violates their rights to free speech, free assembly and equal protection under the law" and seeking "to block prosecutors from continuing the John Doe probe, relieve O'Keefe and the Wisconsin Club for Growth from having to cooperate with it, and order prosecutors to pay them compensatory damages for violating their constitutional rights."[29] On May 30, 2014, O'Keefe and WCFG filed a suit in the Waukesha County Circuit Court seeking to remove the Government Accountability Board, Wisconsin's elections and ethics agency, from the John Doe case.[30] On September 24, 2014, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the lawsuit to be thrown out, declaring that federal Judge Rudolph Randa never should have taken the case in the first place.[31]

Support for Walker Aide Kelly Rindfleisch Convicted of Felony Misconduct in Office

O'Keefe's organizations have also supported a former Walker senior staffer who was convicted of a felony. Kelly Rindfleisch, former Deputy Chief of Staff for Scott Walker while he was Milwaukee County Executive, had been charged with four felonies relating to political fundraising while on the county payroll as the result of an earlier John Doe investigation, but in November 2012 reached a plea agreement with prosecutors resulting in six months in jail and three years of probation on a single felony count of misconduct in office. (The plea was announced shortly after prosecutors had subpoenaed Walker to testify in the case.)[32] Following over two years of unsuccessful appeals, she began serving her sentence on April 1, 2015.[33] According to the Franklin Center's Wisconsin Reporter, which published more than 160 pieces defending Rindfleisch, O'Keefe, and others,[25] as of April 2015 she was on work release working for O'Keefe's E&L Corporation.[34] In June 2015, Rindfleisch filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to have her conviction overturned, arguing that the warrants under which evidence against her was found were overly broad (an argument already rejected by the state appeals court[35] and the state Supreme Court.)[36]

Rindfleisch has been represented by Milwaukee attorney Frank Gimbel.[37]

In 2015, the Center for Media and Democracy (which publishes SourceWatch) discovered tax filings showing that Eric O'Keefe made a $50,000 donation to Project Veritas in 2013. Project Veritas is a group affiliated with James O'Keefe, known for a series of deceptive videos attacking targets like Planned Parenthood and ACORN, a community organizing group. In early 2014, Project Veritas published a video it had recorded of an inebriated Mike Ellis (R-Neenah), then President of the Wisconsin State Senate, discussing the possibility of "setting up an illegal political action committee to attack his Democratic opponent."[38] Ellis later speculated that WCFG was behind the sting.[39]

When called by CMD and asked about the $50,000 donation, Eric O'Keefe said "I didn't give that in 2013," then ended the call.[40] A copy of the relevant section of the tax filing is available here.

The Center for Media and Democracy, publisher of Sourcewatch.org, was also subject to a failed sting operation that year by James O'Keefe and his Project Veritas. CMD reported on Ryan Sorba's camera crews trailing Executive Director Lisa Graves, the fake movie scheme proposed by a group called African Americans for Change, and other suspicious behavior in a series of articles in 2014.

O'Keefe Group Funded Legal Challenge to WI Contribution Limits

In 2014, while the John Doe investigation was proceeding, a number of groups with ties to O'Keefe were involved in a federal lawsuit against the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board (GAB) to end enforcement of a Wisconsin campaign finance law limiting total contributions to candidates by political action committees.[1]

U.S. District Judge Rudolph Randa, who has attended numerous judicial junkets funded by the same right-wing network that has funded WCFG,[44] sided with CRG, issuing a temporary injunction on September 5, 2014 that prohibited enforcement of the law.[45] As of September 2014, the GAB had ceased enforcing aggregate PAC limits,[46] and huge donations to the state's Republican and Democratic parties--which can then transfer huge sums to candidate committees--quickly followed.[47]

Ties to Right-Wing Groups

Ties to the Koch Brothers

According to the Washington Post:

"Early in his libertarian days, O’Keefe became friendly with the Koch brothers, with whom he has joined in many battles, mainly through independent groups that the courts have empowered to raise unlimited money, often without having to identify their donors."[48]

More recently, O'Keefe was listed as a presenter at the June 2010 Koch network meeting in Aspen, Colorado. He sits on the board of the Koch's Institute for Humane Studies (IHS) and was formerly on the board of directors of the Cato Institute, a Koch-founded libertarian think tank..[49] SAM's internship recruitment page was connected to Koch Industries through the Charles G. Koch Summer Fellow Program. The program was administered through the IHS and the State Policy Network and featured on the IHS website.[50]

O'Keefe was invited to present at a meeting of conservative donors plotting a campaign against Democrats and climate change organized by the Koch brothers at Rancho Las Palmas Resort in Ranch Mirage, California in January 2011, according to a list obtained by Lee Fang and published by ThinkProgress.[51]

According to reporting by the Center for Media and Democracy, the Wisconsin Club for Growth, for which O'Keefe is a board member, "took in funds from some of the top Republican donors and Koch-connected dark money conduits in the country," including the Center to Protect Patient Rights and the Wellspring Committee, as part of a "dark money web" funding at least $9.1 million in spending in 2011 and 2012 recall elections in Wisconsin.[53]

O'Keefe also appears to have ties going back decades to other individuals who have been close to the Kochs, such as Edward H. Crane. O'Keefe's website states, for example, that in 1981, "Senator McCarthy invited Ed Crane and Eric to dine with him in the Senate dining room, where the trio discussed the situation with political speech and regulation, among other things."[54]

Wisconsin Club for Growth

WCFG has funneled millions of dollars to other right-wing advocacy groups, many of which have spent large sums on political ads. In 2011 and 2012, WCFG "spent more than $9.1 million during the [Wisconsin] recalls, one of the biggest sources of “issue ad” funding during that period" even though the group spent only $100,000 directly, according to Express Milwaukee.[55][56]

In 2011 and 2012, donations from WCFG have provided almost the entire budget of Citizens for a Strong America, which in turn funded conservative organizations including the anti-gay Wisconsin Family Action, anti-abortion Wisconsin Right to Life, and the Healthcare Compact Alliance--whose parent organization, Competitive Governance Action,[57] included Eric O'Keefe on its board of directors.[58]

In 2011, WCFG also provided about half the budget for the pro-business Jobs First Coalition, which in turn transferred $245,000 to a group called the American Federation for Children (AFC). AFC reported spending $1.1 million supporting Gov. Scott Walker during his recall, in addition to $1.3 million supporting Wisconsin Republican state senators being recalled in 2011.[53] In 2012, WCFG donated $250,000 directly to AFC.[59]

Wisconsin Club for Growth was one of 29 right-wing groups (including nonprofits, political vendors and party committees) that has reportedly been subpoenaed as a part of a "John Doe" investigation into possible campaign finance violations during Wisconsin's 2011 and 2012 elections, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Milwaukeeans for Self-Governance

Eric O'Keefe has connections to Milwaukeeans for Self-Governance, called a "secretive" right-wing political organization by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, that influenced almost all of the 14 Common Council races in the 2016 election cycle, spending an estimated $200,000 "without disclosing its donors, detailing its spending or even registering with local, state or federal agencies," as described by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.[60] The group's leader is Craig Peterson, a long-time Republican political operative, who has worked with O'Keefe since at least 2014 race for Milwaukee County Sheriff, in which Peterson's group paid for radio ads in favor of incumbent David A. Clarke Jr.[60] O'Keefe raised the money that Peterson spent on the 2014 campaign for Sheriff and Peterson commented on their relationship, saying "he's good at raising it; I'm good at spending it."[60]

Peterson told the Journal Sentinel, "We're not registered with anybody because we don't need to be [...] However, we are going to be around for a long time, so there may be multiple organizations."[60] The only statement Peterson would make about the group's funding was that it came from a "network of business people," claiming that they were primarily residents of downtown Milwaukee.[60]

The group was involved in the 2016 city elections in the form of radio ads, research on opposition candidates, and polling.[60] As described by the Journal Sentinel:

Some spots — including one featuring convicted former Ald. Michael McGee Jr. — encouraged people to vote. Other ads by the group slammed Mayor Tom Barrett over increasing car thefts and his streetcar plans. Another radio spot, voiced by Clarke, warned about soaring crime in the city.[60]

Sam Adams Alliance

O'Keefe founded the Sam Adams Alliance (SAM) and served as chairman and CEO. According to O'Keefe's website, SAM was intended to be a right wing source of support for freedom of speech and discussion of political issues, training citizens to be activists and bloggers. The organization was active from 2007 to 2011.[61] The development of SAM led to the foundations of the tea party movement, allowing activists like Eric Odom the opportunity to develop websites and social media as a organizational platform. Odom was SAM's new media director before he branched out on his own.[50]

According to Liberty Guide, a project of the Institute for Humane Studies, "Eric O’Keefe is chairman and CEO of the Sam Adams Alliance. Under his leadership, the Sam Adams Alliance (SAM) has established some of the most active and respected organizations in the freedom movement, including American Majority and the Franklin Center. SAM has also launched Judgepedia, Ballotpedia, and Sunshine Review, Wikipedia-style websites that have had more than 19 million page views for their 128,000 pages of politically important information. He serves on the board of directors of the Institute for Humane Studies, the Center for Competitive Politics, the Citizens in Charge Foundation, and Wisconsin Club for Growth. He authored the book Who Rules America, which won praise from Milton Friedman, and hosts a new podcast series, Engaging Democracy. When not promoting political reform, O’Keefe is a private investor residing in rural Wisconsin with his wife, Leslie Graves."[62]

According to the State Policy Network's (SPN) website, SAM received funding from SPN and was listed in their network of state think tanks. [63]

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that in “its first year, the Franklin Center had a $2.9 million budget, much of it from the libertarian Sam Adams Alliance.” [68]

Background

According to his personal website, O'Keefe is originally from Grosse Pointe, Michigan. He briefly worked at Detroit Broach and Machine and was a member of the United Steelworkers of America Local 7489.[54]

He lives in Spring Green, Wisconsin with his wife, Leslie Graves, who is president of the Lucy Burns Institute.

Libertarian Party

O'Keefe became involved with the Libertarian Party in the mid-1970s and was elected to the Libertarian National Committee in 1979. In 1980, he served as National Field Coordinator for the Libertarian presidential campaign,[54] in which David Koch was the vice presidential candidate, and was elected National Director of the Libertarian Party.[69] According to O'Keefe's website, he left the Libertarian Party in 1983.

In the 1980s, O'Keefe was involved with the National Taxpayers Union. In 1988, he joined the Cato Institute board of directors.[54] In 1991, O'Keefe formed U.S. Term Limits to push for legislation limiting congressional term limits across the US. As described by O'Keefe's website, the group was involved in "major innovation" related to political advertising.

"U.S. Term Limits also implemented a major innovation in political communication by creating Americans for Limited Terms to run aggressive pre-election issue advertising. The complex new laws of 1974 and the rewrite by the Supreme Court deterred participation in politics, as it was intended to do.

"However nothing in the law, the Buckley decision, or subsequent decisions precluded advertising to promote issue positions, even if that advertising might well influence voters, and therefore elections. So Eric recommended that friends of U.S. Term Limits set up a new entity, to limit exposure in the event of the F.E.C. complaints and possible other litigation we expected to meet for promoting our political views."[54]

Since the 1990s, O'Keefe has been involved in a number of right-wing political organizations engaged on topics such as fighting campaign finance reform, opposing the Affordable Care Act, and supporting Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.